


The Lament of Maria

by Mornelithe_falconsbane



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Cursed Jaskier, Fairy Tale Curses, Friendship, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, I make a token effort to treat the crack seriously, Jaskier gives Geralt a contract, Jaskier is haunted, M/M, Musical Ghost, Pre-slash of the best friends who really really really like each other variety, There Was Only One Bedroll, cannibalism jokes, crack treated kind of seriously, ghost story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26474662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mornelithe_falconsbane/pseuds/Mornelithe_falconsbane
Summary: On a cold April morning, Jaskier found himself haunted by the ghost of a young girl.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 37
Kudos: 168
Collections: Jump Scare 2020





	The Lament of Maria

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Plaid_Slytherin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/gifts).



It was a cold morning in April when Jaskier's troubles began. He was striding swiftly down the foggy road, humming softly to himself as he reminisced about last night's dinner when something else began humming with him--from behind him. Very close behind him. 

Jaskier spun on his heel, but the humming didn't stop--and nor was it now in front of him. It remained, as before, just behind his ear. He spun again, just to make sure, but the young lady just kept humming. And she did not appear.

Jaskier was a very good friend to a very lovely Witcher, and thus Jaskier was more prepared than the average bard in such a supernatural circumstance. He did not scream. He breathed out very slowly, gathered his courage, and asked her, "My dear, who are you?" He was quite proud that his voice trembled not even a hair.

She hummed merrily in reply, and Jaskier thought she might even be smiling. Surely this little ghost of a girl meant him no harm, he decided, and so Jaskier the Bard strode into the fog, continuing on his way to the lovely village of Twaddlecock.

Jaskier eventually began to hum along. It was quite a catchy melody.

She went quiet as they entered the village, and Jaskier wondered if she was perhaps a little shy.

The tavern was a small building in the centre of the village, and the owner was quite pleased to have a bard for the night. She threw in a bench by the fire for him to sleep on and dinner at half-price, and Jaskier shook her hand with enthusiasm. It was an excellent deal in a village so small. 

Truth be told, Jaskier was stopping in Twaddlecock for no greater reason than that name made him giggle like a schoolboy when he found it on his map. It was somewhat east of Novigrad, which was where he was somewhat planning on heading, and the coincidence was too great to avoid. He fully intended to compose a drinking song or two to the virtues of sleeping in Twaddlecock, and then to never return. 

He spent a lovely morning in the market, and the afternoon dozing under the trees of a nearby brook. Jaskier's ears caught the ghost humming every once in a while, but never once when other people could hear her. 

It seemed quite poetic that he'd be haunted by a music-loving ghost! He would search out Geralt, Jaskier decided, and ask him to help the little ghost. It seemed like the least he could do for her.

As the afternoon eased into evening, Jaskier returned to the tavern. He stole a warm bench by the fire while he waited for the tavern to fill up and whiled away his time by playing the melody of the song she'd been humming. He fancied that he could feel her approval, her earnest gratitude toward him for being her audience. Jaskier was going to write _such_ a good song about her after he was certain she wasn't going to eat him during the next new moon.

The dinner crowd was nearly done eating when Jaskier decided it was time to begin. He stood on the bench and strummed his lute to grab their attention. "Ladies and Gentlemen! I am the bard--"

It was then when the ghost struck.

His lute hummed in his hands and suddenly began to sing, her voice soft and sweet and _terribly_ young:

 _"The Bard, he ordered my death, you see,  
_ _The Bard, he ordered my death!_

_They cut off my head, sliced me in twain,  
_ _Never my throat would sing again,  
_ _And the Bard as savage as any beast,  
_ _Then turned me into his evening feast--"_

Jaskier slammed his lute back into its case, and laughed heartily as he wrapped the whole thing in his heavily embroidered cloak. It barely muffled her voice, not in the absolute silence that had overtaken the tavern. "Oh my! When did that get cursed?" he said brightly, backing out the door as he bowed to his audience, and then bolted for the edge of town. Behind him, he heard the tavern break into shouts. The tavern door swung open, footsteps charging out, but they happily headed in the opposite direction of Jaskier.

He tightened his arms around his lute and tried to shush her, but the ghost payed him no mind. She sang sweetly into the night air, her voice muffled by the case and his cloak, but not nearly enough for Jaskier's taste. "Please be quiet," he whispered, "They'll think I killed you."

The ghost did not shush, but his cloak muffled her voice enough that he couldn't quite make out the words. It would have to do, Jaskier decided, trotting into the forest as quickly as he dared. Geralt would be terribly disappointed in him for traveling alone at night (Geralt often worried about monsters in the dark), but Jaskier was sure his friend would understand, given the circumstances. And Jaskier would not tell him when he recounted this part of his adventure. He did so hate it when Geralt worried.

It was very dark in the forest, and his lute subsided into merry humming as soon as he was alone. Jaskier didn't quite trust it and as he listened he grew more and more unsettled. Geralt was a bit of a nervous Nancy when it came to all the things that could be hiding in the dark, but that didn't mean it was a clever choice to wander through a pitch black forest while humming a cheery song. Also, his lute was either cursed or haunted (Geralt would know which), and Jaskier didn't like that at all. It was a very nice lute.

He passed the night hidden in the roots of an oak tree, arms wrapped around his lute to try to silence her. It didn't work very well, but no one found him, so Jaskier counted it as a win.

Dawn came in slow and grey, dew formed on his hair and cloak. Jaskier was very tired, and he would have quite liked a nap, but his lute was still humming about a murderous bard.

Jaskier opened his map and pulled out his quill and ink, then drew a careful 'x' through Twaddlecock. This time of the year, Geralt would be coming down from the north and east, and Jaskier could likely find him on one of the three major roads between Novigrad and Kaedwan. However, there was a chance that people would string him up because his lute was accusing him of being a cannibal. That wasn't very good.

Troubled, Jaskier stared at his lute, then at the map. Did ghosts take naps? 

The tireless quality of her humming suggested she did not.

"Well, I suppose we have no choice, little lute ghost. We shall have to summon a Witcher." Jaskier pulled out his nicest stationary (a grubby page out of his least favourite songbook) and his nicest wax (a tallow candle stub he'd picked up somewhere and kept forgetting to use or toss.) Then he started writing.

***

Geralt found the contract in a town so small that he only ever visited it because the name made him laugh. 

_Needed: A Witcher._

_Haunted Lute, fix it and I will be your best friend in the entire world (forever)!_

It had a wax seal, and Geralt stared at it for too long before he realized that it was a crude drawing of a smiling wolf pressed into candle wax. He sighed and pulled it down, sniffing it to be certain. It was Jaskier, of course, because who else would try to trade him that which he already had?

He headed to the tavern, and showed the bartender the note. "Do you know where I can find the person who posted this?"

She stared at him, pouring too much ale into the mug she was filling. It dripped down the edge, covered her fingers. "You're going to _take_ it?"

"Do you know how hard it is to find a best friend?" Geralt replied, because, okay, he thought it'd be funny. "Do you know where he is?"

"No idea," she replied. "You're truly going to fix a lute in exchange for friendship?"

Geralt nodded somberly, carefully folding the notice and tucking it into his belt pouch. "Have a good night, then."

"You're getting cheated," she said, and then she grinned at him. "Hey, want to clean out the cesspool out back? I'll be your best friend, too."

Geralt shook his head. "One contract at a time. It's the rules."

He left to the sound of her cackling laughter and headed toward the tower he could see on the horizon. Jaskier liked tall things.

***

It'd been six days, and Jaskier was royally sick of her song. He'd stuck the lute in a chest he'd found at the top of the tower, then done his best to ignore it as he hunt down food by day and wrote increasingly grim songs by night. Who knew that Geralt made camping so much more tolerable? It was nearly _excruciating--_ not in the least because he could hear her singing day in and day out, whether he was foraging for food or standing next to the chest. 

That was probably a bad sign. Jaskier deeply regretted not just leaving his lute and wandering around looking for Geralt, but he'd made the notice and Geralt would worry if he couldn't find him. Sometimes Jaskier was far too smart for his own good.

It was almost evening, and Jaskier had three very small fish and some garlic shoots that he was very excited to eat. The ghost was following him around at about ankle height, which had been very unsettling at first, but he'd grown used to it. Jaskier practically see her in his mind's eye--a little girl, no more than fourteen, her hair as russet as a fox's pelt and her eyes a soft and gentle brown. Crawling on her belly through the rotting leaves while singing a rather cheerful song about being murdered and eaten.

And the singing! It wasn't that she was _bad_ at it, but Jaskier was cultivating a passionate hatred of the sound of her voice purely on account of it going on and on and on and _on_. Was this how Geralt felt about Jaskier's singing? Surely not, Jaskier's songs were far more innovative, clever, and so much less _fucking repetitive_. 

He missed silence so much.

" _The Bard, he ordered my death, you see,  
_ _The Bard, he ordered my death!_

 _They cut off my head, sliced me in twain,  
_ _Never my throat would sing again,  
_ _And the Bard as savage as any beast  
_ _Then turned me into his evening feast!  
_

 _The Bard, he ordered my death, you see,  
_ _The Bard, he ordered my death!_ _  
_

_So I cursed him with my dying breath,  
_ _That Terrible Bard who ordered my death!  
That every soul will know his crime,  
That every song will tell my rhyme,_

 _Because the Bard, he ordered my death,  
_ _The Bard, he ordered my death!_

 _The Bard, he ordered my death, you see,  
_ _The Bard, he ordered my death!  
_ _The Bard, he ordered my death!"_

And she just kept going. And going. And going.

It was awful. It couldn't even be sung in rounds, Jaskier had tried and it'd sounded like so much shit. 

He hadn't had more than a nap or two in the last six days, and those only when he passed out in sheer exhaustion. His bones ached, and his head felt like that time he'd tried to win a drinking contest with three dwarves and a Witcher. It'd been a bad idea. This was a bad idea. He was being followed by a singing child snake ghost, and Geralt might be in--in bedamned _Oxenfurt_ by now. Jaskier should have lit his lute on fire. 

"Looking a little tired, there, Jaskier."

He thought it was the ghost for a while, staring at the spot her voice was coming from for far too long before he realized that the voice was much too deep to be hers. "Oh--oh, Geralt! You found me!"

Geralt swung down from Roach, and he looked well-rested, damn him. They had established roles for which of them was the insomniac in this friendship, and Jaskier deeply resented the switch. "Well, that's certainly a ghost. When did she show up?"

Jaskier blinked at him owlishly as he thought about it. "A while ago?"

"I assume you didn't actually order a small child killed for your dinner?"

"What? No! She's--she's some dead girl. Some other bard must have. I wouldn't." Jaskier was fairly certain that he didn't actually have to tell Geralt that, but he said it anyway. "Then they ate her? That part's been bugging me, it's so weird, what kind of bard eats little girls? Not even Valdo Marx would, probably." Jaskier stared at his fish thoughtfully, then asked, "Do you think he might, Geralt? Valdo's such an asshole."

"No, you're definitely the bard," Geralt said, taking the fish from Jaskier and leading him into the abandoned tower. "Ghosts like her know why they're dead."

Jaskier stared at Geralt and contemplated crying. He was too tired, honestly, but this was just unfair. "You think I _ate a little girl?_ "

"It stinks in here," Geralt said, dropping Jaskier's fish in his cooking pot. "What did you eat before she appeared?"

"Not a little girl!"

"I know you didn't eat a little girl, Jaskier. Just answer the question." Geralt's mouth was doing that thing. The thing where it was twitching down at the corner because he wanted to laugh, but he couldn't. "What _did_ you eat before she turned up?"

"You are a horrible Witcher," Jaskier shouted, then softened his voice immediately, "I don't mean that, you're very good, but I _didn't eat a little girl_ , Geralt. Stop asking, it's very distressing!"

"It's not a little girl, Jaskier." Geralt popped open the chest, fished out Jaskier's lute case, and opened it. He lifted her with both hands, gentle like Jaskier always told him to be with her, and set her down. Then he fished out a--oh. The wishbone. "You had chicken?"

"I--might have? Wishbones are lucky." Jaskier had always thought they were neat. 

"Jaskier," Geralt said from very close all of a sudden. "Jaskier, the ghost is a chicken."

"Geralt, I have something to tell you."

"Jaskier, it's a chicken."

"Geralt, I'm hallucinating."

"I can see why you might think that, Jaskier, but you ordered the chicken, then they killed her and cooked her, and then you ate her. This ghost is the ghost of that chicken," Geralt said, and it was honestly the stupidest thing Jaskier had ever heard him say. "Now she's seeking vengeance through...song, apparently."

"I'm hallucinating you saying the stupidest shit, Geralt. I'm embarrassed for your dignity."

Geralt raised his eyebrow, and held out the wishbone. It'd had a very wide tip. Jaskier had been planning to turn it into a lute pick. It looked vaguely like it was glowing a faint ghostly green, which would make it so much easier to find if he ever dropped it in a dark tavern. "We need to name the chicken, and bury her remains. Properly."

"Yeah, okay. Why not?" This was probably just some kind of late-stage insomnia-induced hallucination. He might as well go along with it. "She can be Maria. Let's dig her a grave."

Hallucination Geralt was still trying way too hard not to laugh. "I'm glad you're going to help. Come sit with me while I dig, all right? I'll need someone to sing a dirge or two. Chickens love dirges."

"See, that's how I know you're a figment of my imagination, Geralt," Jaskier complained as he followed Geralt outside. "Geralt does not know what a dirge is. He does not."

"We've been friends for ten years, Jaskier, do you _really_ think I know absolutely nothing about music? You wrote a dirge for that king's funeral three years ago, the song that got us kicked out of that duchy." 

Jaskier collapsed on the ground, watching Geralt get his shovel from Roach and pace out a likely spot. "My throat hurts," he whined. "And I can't think of any dirges for a little chicken girl."

"That you ate," Geralt added. "Don't forget that part."

It was ridiculous, but her singing was getting softer as Geralt dug, and Jaskier could mostly hear himself think. "Fine. I'll..." he took a deep breath, then sang:

" _Oh_ _Maria, Maria, I'm a man of regrets  
Maria, Maria, I've eaten your flesh,  
_ _Maria, Maria, I -- I forfeit,  
_ _Oh Maria, Maria, please let me rest,"_

The digging went fast, because Geralt was a world champion at digging up both new and old graves. Hazard of the Witchering profession, really. Geralt knelt and carefully placed the wishbone in the grave before Jaskier could come up with a second verse. She was still humming as Geralt clasped his hands together and said, "Here lies Maria, whom Jaskier found delicious. May the sun shine upon her feathers and the worms cower beneath her beak forevermore."

The Geralt grabbed a fistful of salt and scattered it over the bone before he rose to his feet and started briskly tossing the dirt back into the hole.

There was the faint sound of clucking, a distant fluttering of feathers, and then finally, fucking finally, it was _quiet_.

"Her song was better," Geralt said as he patted the grave dirt down with the back of his shovel. The bastard.

"I hate you," Jaskier informed him, his head rolling to the side as he tried to stare Geralt down. He was _so tired_.

Geralt grinned at him. "Can't. We're best friends forever."

Jaskier's heart swooped lazily through his rib cage because wow, that was nice to hear. "What?"

A piece of grubby paper ended up in Jaskier's hands, Geralt still grinning like an idiot. "Fixed your lute, didn't I? Pay up."

This would be a great time to fall asleep dramatically, Jaskier realized, so he did.

***

Jaskier was just tired, Geralt decided after he shook him awake twice to Jaskier's yowling protests. Geralt rolled out a ground tarp, then his bedroll and the extra blankets he kept for Jaskier. By the time Geralt had gotten Roach's saddle off, Jaskier had crawled into Geralt's bedroll like a homing pigeon with a sixth sense for comfortable things. Geralt was fairly sure he hadn't even woken up to do it.

It was quiet in the woods, now that the chicken Maria had been laid to rest. Geralt made a fire, and set his saddlebags within arm's reach of the bedroll in case Jaskier woke up hungry.

Then he picked up Jaskier's contract from the ground and stared at it for a while. The wax seal was peeling up and the paper was covered with fingerprint smudges.

Geralt put it between the pages of his journal. Just in case.

Then he settled into the blankets next to his best friend in the whole world (forever) and sighed contentedly as Jaskier flopped on top of him like a very weak, but very determined kraken.

It was nice to be back. 

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to write music, but please, don't try to sing it. Stay here with me in the bliss of suspended disbelief.


End file.
